Mobile hay bale accumulators which accompany tractor drawn hay balers to accumulate and temporarily store a batch of bales, are known in the art. However, these prior art accumulators as represented for example by U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,373,882, Mar. 19, 1968, S. L. Forest; 3,159,287, Dec. 1, 1964, H. R. Stroup; 3,157,295, Nov. 17, 1964, C. W. Pridgeon et al., and 3,163,302, Dec. 29, 1964, C. W. Pridgeon and "Farmhand" brand accumulators on the market have significant operational deficiencies. For example, the bales are pushed off the accumulator by a conveyor chain arrangement. This causes multiple problems such as a required adjustment of conveyor discharge speed with the ground speed of the tractor to permit bales to be discharged in an ordered batch in side-by-side adjacent relationship for recovery by a mechanized loader. Thus, bales may be scattered or disoriented upon discharge. Also a complex costly chain and drive mechanism which tends to accumulate litter thereby requiring careful maintenance, and necessitating significant driving energy is required.
Further deficiencies of the prior art appear when bales must be lifted, turned and/or placed in position by complex mechanisms. The simpler a mechanism, the more reliable it is in the field. Also significant operating energy is required which makes it difficult to operate from a standard tractor with a conventional hydraulic system of limited external power capabilities. Some mechanisms so twist and distort the bale shape when being handled that they are not properly processed with automatic loading equipment and in some cases causes the baling cord to break. Auxiliary attachments for moving bales or for providing hydraulic power are cumbersome, expensive and difficult to maintain in the field, and are certainly not efficient in energy consumption, even when they can be compatibly attached to or used with hay bale accumulators.
Furthermore, an increase of load capacity of a given size accumulator storage platform is desirable. Thus it is desirable to have batch loads of ten standard size hay bales on an accumulator platform, whereas many accumulators with the same platform area are limited to eight bales.
Therefore it is a general objective of this invention to provide improved hay bale accumulators of improved performance capabilities which are nevertheless simpler, less expensive and more efficient in operation.
It is a more specific object of the invention to provide improved hay bale accumulators with simplified mechanisms operable from the standard hydraulic system of a tractor.
Another object of the invention is to accumulate batches of ten bales with a loading mechanism without twisting or distortion of the bales.
Still another object of the invention is to provide a simplified bale discharge system which is compatible to different tractor speeds and which discharges batches in an ordered side-by-side relationship adaptable for processing by mechanical loading devices.